Frame Relay Services

 

I.3.1     Global Frame Relay Service Level Agreement (SLA)

 

Global Frame Relay Service Level Agreement Summary

The Global Frame Relay Service Level Agreement (GFR-SLA) builds Customer confidence in our network reliability by committing the Company to specific levels of network performance. The Company supports these commitments through financial credits to the Customer for performance failures. Unless otherwise specified, the GFR-SLA applies to frame relay services located or originating in the U.S. Mainland, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam ordered by Customers on or after October 1, 2002, who: (i) commit to a service term of at least one year; and (ii) install service in at least five locations with their initial service order.

 

The GFR-SLA also applies to Customers who ordered services covering transport either within or originating in the U.S. prior to October 1, 2002 if their active contract references the Company tariff.

 

The GFR-SLA consists of standard and enhanced service parameters and one service objective. The standard parameters and service objective are compliant with the Frame Relay Forum Service Level Definitions Implementation Public Document FRF.13. The enhanced parameters are service commitments that go beyond the Frame Forum requirements. These parameters are related to specific products and can be purchased for additional fees. The Customer qualifies for credits when the Company network performance fails to meet the service commitments related to the standard or enhanced service level agreements (SLA).

 

Definitions of Terms

Terms used in this document are defined at the point of use and/or in the Terms and Definitions table at the end of this document.

 

Service Level Agreement Performance Measures

The Company Service Level Agreement performance measures are defined in detail in the Global Frame Relay Service Level Measures Defined section of this document. The items are listed here.

 

The Company offers standard frame relay service level agreements on the following performance metrics:

 

1.         End-to-End Network Availability

2.         Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)

3.         Network Transit Delay (NTD)

 

Data Delivery Ratio (DDR) is offered as an objective and not a SLA. The network is provisioned to meet the Frame Relay Forum DDR metrics. The Company Customer Service Centers will work with Customers to repair DDR issues.

 

The Company offers an enhanced frame relay service level agreement related to a specific product. These measures exceed the Frame Relay Forum requirements and can be purchased for an additional fee. The enhanced parameters are as follows:

 

            Domestic Service Installation

 

Coverage Categories

The service level agreements vary by access type, geographic location and outage type. These are defined as follows:

 

Access Types

The Global Frame Relay SLA covers all access types provided through the Company.

There are four types of End-to-End access associated with the Frame Relay Network for SLA purposes:

 

·         Type 1 End-to-End Access – Local access is furnished wholly via MCI Legacy Company facilities. This category also includes Collocated Customers.

 

·         Type 2 End-to-End Access – Local access is furnished in part via MCI Legacy Company facilities.

 

·         Type 3 End-to-End Access – Local access is not furnished via MCI Legacy Company facilities, but are ordered and billed on Customer’s behalf by Company.

 

·         Company Enterprise Digital Subscriber Line (EDSL) Access: This is the U.S. domestic region access type that applies to Customer sites that employ the Company EDSL product. The EDSL service runs across a loop provided by an ILEC.

 

The GFR-SLA does not apply to access classified as "Customer-Provided". This is defined as access where the Customer remits payment directly to their local provider and Company does not invoice the Customer for the access charges.

 

Geographic Location

The countries covered under the Global Frame Relay SLA are divided into four categories. The categories are as follows:

 

·         U.S.

Includes the 48 contiguous states and Hawaii. The state of Alaska is covered through a Frame Relay Extension agreement and is excluded from the Global Frame Relay SLA.

 

·         U.S. Domestic

Restricted to the 48 contiguous states.

 

·         Global Tier A

 

Global Tier A	Global Tier A	Global Tier A
Australia	Alemania	Noruega
Austria	Hong Kong, China	Singapur
Bélgica	Irlanda	Corea del Sur
Canadá	Italia	España
Dinamarca	Japón	Suecia
Finlandia	Luxemburgo	Suiza
Francia	Holanda	Reino Unido

 

 

·         Global Tier B

All of the Company On Net countries that are not covered in the U.S., U.S. Domestic, and Global Tier A categories.

 

Exclusions

Hawaii and Puerto Rico are excluded from a sub-set of Service Level Agreements. These are detailed in the Exclusions section of this document.

 

Outage Types

The Global Frame Relay Service Level Agreement defines the service disruptions as either a hard or soft outage. The Service Restoration Priority determines the ranking of the repair actions against other service issues.

 

A Hard Outage is defined as a service disruption or degradation that prohibits use of the service. This is classified as a Priority 1 Service Restoration. The service level agreements for End to End Network Availability and Mean Time to Repair apply to hard outages.

 

A Soft Outage is defined as a degradation of service where the Customer can still use the service. This is classified as a Priority 2 Service Restoration. The service level agreement for Network Transit Delay and the Data Delivery Ratio objective apply to soft outages.

 

Service Restoration Priority Table

 

Prioridad	Criteria
Priority 1	a.  Total loss of service b.  Service degradation to the point where the Customer is unable to use the service and is prepared to release it for immediate testing.
Priority 2	Degraded service where the Customer is able to use the service and is not prepared to release it for immediate testing.
Priority 3	a. A service problem that does not impact the service. b. A single non-circuit specific quality of service inquiry.

 

 

The Global Frame Relay Service Level Measures Defined

 

A.         Standard Service Level Agreements

 

1.      End to End Network Availability

 

Definition

End-to-End Network Availability is defined as the total number of minutes in a billing month during which a specific PVC route and local access are available to exchange data between the two Customer end points, divided by the total number of minutes in a billing month. The measure is calculated as the percentage of total time that the PVC is available within a month. The credit payment is determined by the minutes of down time.

 

Offering

 

SLA for U.S. and Global Tier Categories

 

Parameter	Access Type	U.S.	Global Tier A	Global Tier B
End-to-End Network Availability	Type 1	100%	100%	100%
End-to-End Network Availability	Type 2 or 3	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%

 

SLA for U.S. Domestic EDSL services

 

		Service commitment by Region
Parameter	Access Type	U.S. Domestic	U.S.	Global Tier A & B
End-to-End Network Availability Agreement	Type 3	99.80%	No aplicable	No aplicable

 

Calculation

End to End Network Availability is the percentage of time that the PVC is available within a given billing month. End to End Network availability only applies to Hard Outages that are always classified as Service Restoration Priority 1.

 

Monthly End-to-End Network Availability (%) =

 

 

Credit Structure

The credit is based on the number of minutes of down time independent of the actual percent availability calculation. This favors the Customer in most cases and allows for the float in the network availability percentage calculation that is related to the number of days in the month. Sites with Type 1 access qualify for service credits at anything above zero minutes of down time within a billing month. Sites with Type 2 and 3 access qualify for credits at 43 minutes of down time in a billing month.  The Company is within the 99.9% Network Availability commitment at up to 42 minutes of downtime for a 30-day month.

 

The following tables contain the percentage availability translated into minutes of up time and downtime for the 99.9% service commitment for Type 2 and 3 access.

 

Total Minutes Per Month

 

Month in Days	Total Minutes
31 Day Month	44,640
30 Day Month	43,200
29 Day Month	41,760
28 Day Month	40,320

 

Network Availability % Translated to Minutes Up and Minutes Down

 

Percentage by Days per Month	Minutes Up	Minutes Down
99.9% for 31 days	44,595	45
99.9% for 30 Days	43,157	43
99.9% for 29 Days	41,718	42
99.9% for 28 Days	40,280	40

 

2.         Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)

 

Definition

Mean Time To Repair is defined as the average time to restore service during a Network Outage. Mean Time To Repair only applies to Hard Outages. These are always classified as Service Restoration Priority 1. 

 

Offering

 

SLA for U.S. and Global Tier Categories

 

Parameter	Access Type	U.S.	Global Tier A	Global Tier B
End-to-End Network MTTR	Type 1	2 Hours	4 Hours	4 Hours
End-to-End Network MTTR	Type 2 or 3	4 Hours	5 Hours	8 Hours

 

SLA for U.S. Domestic EDSL services

 

		Service Commitment by Region
Parameter	Access Type	U.S. Domestic	U.S.	Global Tier A & B
End-to-End Network MTTR Agreement (excludes LEC local access loop)	Type 3	4 Hours	No aplicable	No aplicable

 

Calculation

MTTR is a monthly average of the time taken to repair all Trouble Tickets on a specific service with the same Service Restoration Priority level during a Network Outage. The length of each Network Outage on a specific service is totaled at the end of each billing month and divided by the corresponding number of Network Outages for that service. This is calculated from Trouble Tickets opened during that billing month.  MTTR per billing month is calculated for the service as follows:

Monthly Mean Time To Repair (Hrs.) =

 

             Cumulative length of Network Outage(s) per service                   

Total number of Trouble Tickets per billing month per service

 

Credit Structure

The credit calculation is based on the average repair times for all network outages within a calendar month. Credits for Type 1 access sites start when the average MTTR equals 2 hours. Credits for Type 2 & 3 access sites start when the average MTTR reaches four hours.

 

3.         Network Transit Delay (NTD)

 

Definition

Company measures network transit delay as a round trip from the Company ingress switches to the Company egress switch. The NTD measure is calculated off the optimal path based on the routing protocols in the network. The NTD SLA matrix does not include the access loop in the calculations.

 

The Frame Relay Forum technical definition of NTD is the round trip delay between the origination and destination infrastructure ports. It is the period of time that elapses between (i) the transmission of the packet from the origination infrastructure port and (ii) the receipt of the packet by the destination infrastructure port, in both directions of the PVC. The Company measurement meets the parameters of this technical definition.

 

Offering

The Company offering for round-trip transport that originates and terminates within the U.S. domestic region is based on the division of the country into three sub-regions. These are Pacific, Central and East. The states within each sub-region are detailed in tables at the end of this Guide posting. The NTD SLA is 90ms round trip between any two On Net sites in the same sub-region and 100ms for transport between any two On Net sites in different sub-regions. The U.S. domestic region SLA covers all four access types.

 

On Net sites outside of the U.S. Domestic Region, including Hawaii, are covered with specific country to country round trip transit delay measures that are posted in tables at the end of this document. External factors that may cause delay, such as access serialization delay and access link congestion are excluded from the measurement.

 

The NTD matrix measures best represent the performance of the Company network. These measures consist of both real and calculated times that have been adjusted to capture expected variations in performance. The formula used in the measure varies by site. Network Transit Delay is considered a Service Restoration Priority 2.

 

Company will work with the Customer to confirm the network transit times, repair problems and insure the Customer's applications are functioning in response to the Customer opening a trouble ticket. The NTD SLA gives Company thirty (30) calendar days to repair the NTD issue prior to the Customer qualifying for credits.

 

Calculation

Company calculates the transit delay on the Customer's PVC path from the Company ingress switch to the egress switch. This measure excludes the access loop. The transport time addition of the access loop is estimated in conference with the Customer during the trouble ticket process when necessary.

 

Credit Structure

Company will confirm that specific PVC does or does not comply with the NTD expectation. In cases of non-compliance, Company has thirty (30) calendar days to address the non-compliance and close the applicable Trouble Ticket without penalty. If the PVC continues to not meet this SLA after the 30-day period, the Customer may qualify for credits.

 

B.         Enhanced Service Level Agreement

 

U.S. Domestic Service Installation Agreement

 

Definition

Service Installation is the period of time between the date Company accepts a completed installation order from the Customer for a new frame relay service located within the 48 contiguous U.S. states and the date Company finishes the installation of the service. A finished installation is defined as the point in the implementation where the Customer can use the service. To qualify for the SLA, the access circuit and port must be ordered by Company and be physically located within the 48 contiguous United States with a speed less than or equal to a DS1/T1 (1.536 Mbps). The originating and terminating ports must be within the 48 contiguous United States. The Customer must pay the installation charges for the access circuit, port and PVC. Utilization of promotional offerings on installation charges will disqualify the Customer from this SLA.

 

Offering

The SLA for Service Installation is forty-five business days for new frame relay services with access circuits of less than or equal to T1/DS1 bandwidth.

 

Calculation

The SLA is calculated from the date Company accepts the Customer’s completed order for new frame relay service through the date on which the service has been installed and is ready for Customer’s use.

 

Credit Structure

The Customer will receive a three hundred percent (300%) refund of their installation fees if Company fails to install a circuit within 45 business days. Delays in installation related to Customer actions, moves or scheduling difficulties are excluded from the installation interval calculation.

 

C.         Service Level Objective

 

1. Data Delivery Ratio (DDR) Objective

 

Definition

Data Delivery Ratio is defined as the percentage of payload frames, without the address field or frame check sequence, successfully received at the Ingress User Network Interface (UNI) through to the Egress UNI. DDR applies to one direction of the simplex PVC.  Data Delivery Ratio is considered Service Restoration Priority 2.

 

DDR reports the network’s effectiveness in transporting offered data (payload without address field or Frame Check Sequence (FCS) – error checking information) in one direction of a single PVC. The DDR is a ratio of successful payload octets received at the ingress user network interface (UNI) to attempted payload octets transmitted through the egress UNI.

 

Offering

 

		Service Objective by Region
Parameter	Access Type	U.S. Domestic	U.S.	Global Tier A	Global Tier B
Data Delivery Ratio within CIR	No aplicable	99.99%	99.99%	99.9%	99.9%

 

Calculation

DDR is calculated as the number of all data payload octets within CIR that are successfully delivered divided by the total number of all data payload octets sent and marked within the CIR by the Company Frame Relay network. This measurement domain is Edge-to-Edge Egress Queue. 

 

DDR per billing month is calculated as follows:

 

DDR_c         DDR for load consisting of frames within the CIR rate:

 

DDR_c = DataDelivered_cperPVC

DataOffered_cperPVC

 

On the U.S. Domestic Option 2 Frame Relay network the calculation is based upon the frame delivery statistics stated in the Company Event Monitor reports for the Company Frame Relay monthly billing period.  For the U.S. Domestic Option 1 Frame Relay network, and the Option 1 and 2 International Frame Relay network, the calculation is based upon a Trouble Ticket being opened by the Customer for the Network Outage.

 

Credit Structure

DDR is a service level objective. The Customer Service Centers will work with Customers to repair DDR issues. However, DDR does not have credits for failure to meet performance criteria.

 

Credit Tables by Outage Type

The credits vary by location, access type and length of outage.

 

1.         Hard Outage Tables

 

A. Network Availability Excluding EDSL

Network Availability		Credit as a % of MRR
Network Down Time		U.S, Global Tier A & B	U.S.,           Global Tier A	Global Tier B
From  Minutes	To Minutes	Type 1	Type 2 or 3	Type 2 or 3
0	42	10%	0%	0%
43	120	15%	10%	5%
121	240	20%	10%	5%
241	360	25%	15%	10%
361	640	30%	20%	10%
641	720	30%	20%	10%
> 720		30%	20%	10%

 

B. Network Availability for EDSL

The EDSL SLA follows the SLA for the U.S. coverage. The material is covered in a separate table because the U.S. Domestic region can not be clearly listed on Table A.

 

Network Availability		Credit as a % of MRR
Network Down Time		U.S. Domestic
From  Minutes	To Minutes	Type 3
0	86	0%
87	120	10%
121	240	10%
241	360	15%
361	640	20%
641	720	20%
> 720		20%

 

C. Mean Time to Repair excluding EDSL

 

Mean Time to Repair		Credit as a % of MRR
Network Outage to Repair Time		U.S	U.S.	Global Tier A & B	Global Tier A	Global Tier B
Desde Hours:Min:Sec	Para Hours:Min:Sec	Type 1	Type 2 or 3	Type 1	Type 2 or 3	Type 2 or 3
2:00:00	3:59:59	4%	0%	0%	0%	0%
4:00:00	4:59:59	4%	4%	4%	0%	0%
5:00:00	7:59:59	10%	10%	10%	4%	0%
8:00:00	11:59:59	10%	10%	10%	4%	4%
12 Hours Plus		10%	10%	10%	4%	4%

 

D. Mean Time to Repair for EDSL

 

Mean Time to Repair		Credit as a % of MRR
Network Outage to Repair Time		U.S. Domestic
Desde Hours:Min:Sec	Para Hours:Min:Sec	Type 3
2:00:00	3:59:59	0%
4:00:00	4:59:59	4%
5:00:00	7:59:59	10%
8:00:00	11:59:59	10%
12 Hours Plus		10%

 

2.         Soft Outage Table

Soft Outage
For violations of:	Credit as a % of MRR
Latencia	20%
Data Delivery Ratio (DDR)	Not applicable.

 

Credit Application Structure

The SLA credits are taken off the MRR.  The credits can be applied against PVC and/or Port charges as dictated by the outage type, either Hard or Soft. The credits are not cumulative month to month meaning the same schedule applies for each consecutive month should the outage exceed 30 days. The total credits within any one-month for the Standard SLAs is limited to a maximum of 40% of the MRR for Port and PVC(s). The Enhanced SLAs have unique credit maximums.

 

Customers are required to open a Trouble Ticket with the Company Customer Service Center at the time the service difficulty develops in order for the outage to qualify for an SLA credit. The Trouble Ticket can be opened through the web-based tool or by contacting the Customer Service Center. Company, in its sole discretion, shall determine whether it complied with any and all SLAs and whether or not a credit is due to the Customer. Company commits to crediting the Customer's account within 90 days following Company's confirmation of non-compliance with the SLA.

 

1.         Standard Service Level Agreement Credit Applications:

The credit is applied as a percentage of the MRR for the PVC and/or the port where applicable. The credit is applied on the MRR against single PVC or the multiple PVCs that were affected by the network outages. The credit can also be applied to the port MRRs when the outage impacted both the port and the PVCs.  A port outage would result in credits to all of the PVCs on the port. The credits can accrue to a maximum of 40% of the MRR for the Customer's service.

 

Customers can qualify for both Network Availability and MTTR credits related to Hard Outages. The Soft Outage category credits are limited to Network Transit Delay. The Customer cannot receive a Hard and Soft Outage credit for the same event or claim credits under both types of outages within the same month. The Customer has to select either the Hard Outage credits or the Soft Outage credits when both types of outages have occurred in the same month. The Customer can request to have compliance checked for all of the standard SLA commitments when requesting credits in any given month.

 

The SLA credit is applied in one lump sum at the Billing Account Number (BAN) level.  The credit does not appear against each individual circuit charge or against all circuits under multiple BANs. The credit percentage is not deducted from either local access or back haul charges.

 

2.         Enhanced Service Level Agreement Credit Applications:

The credits for the Enhanced SLA appear on the invoice under the same structure as the standard SLA. These are applied in a lump sum at the BAN level. The credit application for the Enhanced SLAs is as follows:

 

a.         Domestic Service Installation

The Customer receives a credit equal to 300% of the one-time charges for installation of the access circuit, port and PVC. The credit will only apply to the specific access circuit and port in non-compliance. The Customer must have paid the installation charges in order to qualify for the credit.

 

b.         Enhanced Proactive Notification

The Customer will receive a credit equal to 300% of the MRR for Frame Relay Gold or Frame Relay Platinum on the applicable access circuit. There is a limit of one credit per circuit in non-compliance per month.

 

Process for Customers to Apply for SLA Credits

The Customer completes two steps in order to have an outage qualify for a Service Level Agreement credit. First, the Customer has to open a Trouble Ticket in response to service issues. This step brings the problem to the attention of Customer Service for intervention and repair. The second step is to request the credit in writing from the account team contact. The timing of the written request varies by service issue and is detailed below.

 

Opening a Trouble Ticket       

The Trouble Ticket can be opened either through the Customer Service Center or through the web-based tool Service Event Management. The number for the assigned Customer Service Center is printed on the Customer's invoice. Access to the Service Event Management tool can requested at the first use. The tool and registration for new users is located at URL: www.mci.com.

 

·         Select Customer Tools

·         Select Company Customer Center

·         This will bring you through a series of pages until you get the option to log onto The Customer Center.

 

Submitting a Service Level Agreement Credit Request

The request for a Service Level Agreement credit is submitted in writing from the Customer to the account team. The timing and content of the request varies by SLA. This communication can be through e-mail or by fax. The Customer may elect to receive verification on all of the SLAs offered in conjunction with their frame relay service when requesting calculations for any single item.

 

Trouble Ticket and Credit Request by Service Level Agreement

 

a.         End To End Network Availability

In order for the outage to qualify for an SLA credit the Customer must do the following:

 

1.  Customer opens a Trouble Ticket within 72 hours of the time the outage.

2.  Customer submits SLA credit request to the Account Team in writing within 15 days of opening the Trouble Ticket.

 

The written request must contain the following information:

-  The date the outage occurred.

-  The time the outage began and ended.

-  The Circuit ID(s) for each circuit(s) that was impacted.

 

b.         Mean Time To Repair

In order for the outage to qualify for an SLA credit the Customer must do the following:

 

1.      Customer opens Trouble Ticket within 72 hours of the outage.

2.      Customer submits SLA credit request to the Account Team in writing within 15 days of opening the Trouble Ticket.

 

The written request must contain the following information:

 

·         The date the outage occurred.

·         The time the outage began and ended.

·         The Circuit ID(s) for each circuit(s) that was impacted.

 

c.         Network Transit Delay

In order for the outage to qualify for an SLA credit the Customer must do the following:

 

1.      Customer opens Trouble Ticket within 72 hours of the time the NTD issue impacts the Customer

2.      Customer submits the SLA credit request to the Account Team. This is submitted in writing within 15 days of the end of the repair period.

 

The written request must contain the following information:

 

·         The date the outage occurred.

·         The time the outage began and ended.

·         The Circuit ID(s) for each circuit(s) that was impacted.

 

d.         U.S. Domestic Service Installation

Customer must report the delay in service installation to the appropriate Customer service center when the target date is missed.

 

Customer then needs to make a request in writing (e-mail or fax) for a credit from Company within fifteen (15) days of the date that Company completes the installation of the circuit. 

The Customer must document the following information when requesting the credit:

 

·         The circuit identifier

·         The date the circuit should have been installed

·         The date the circuit was installed

·         The date that the service installation period began

·         The date specified for installation by the Customer

·         The Customer contact information. 

 

e.         Enhanced Proactive Notification

The Customer must request the service level Agreement credit in writing from the Account Team within 15 days of the service outage.

 

The written documentation must contain the following:

 

·         The date the circuit outage occurred

·         The time the circuit outage began and ended

·         The circuit ID(s) for each circuit(s) that did not receive notification within the EPN SLA time frame.

 

Network Transit Delay Matrix for U.S. and U.S. to Non-US Transport:

 

Process for Determining the Round Trip Network Transit Delay:

The NTD matrix measures best represent the performance of the Company network. These measures consist of both real and calculated times that have been adjusted to capture expected variations in performance. The measures are presented in round-trip milliseconds on all tables.

 

The measures are calculated and/or derived from the network optimal PVC path between the trunks that may or may not be the shortest distance in miles. For example, the distance from Japan to the United Kingdom is based on the trunks from Japan to the United States and on to the United Kingdom.

 

External factors such as access serialization delay and access link congestion, which may cause delay, are excluded from the measurement.

 

Table 1: U.S. Domestic NTD (48 contiguous States)

Offering

The Company offering for round-trip transport that originates and terminates within the U.S. Domestic region consist of two agreements. The first is a 90ms NTD for transport between any two On Net sites within the same sub-region. The second is 100ms NTD for transport between any two On Net sites in different sub-regions. The sub-regions are defined as follows:

 

U.S Domestic Sub-Regions

Pacific Sub-Region

Estado	Estado	Estado
Arizona	Montana	Utah
California	Nevada	Washington
Colorado	New Mexico	Wyoming
Idaho	Oregon

 

Central Sub-Region

Estado	Estado	Estado
Arkansas	Louisiana	North Dakota
Illinois	Michigan	Oklahoma
Indiana	Minnesota	South Dakota
Iowa	Missouri	Texas
Kansas	Nebraska	Wisconsin

 

East Sub-Region

Estado	Estado	Estado	Estado
Alabama	Maine	New York	Tennessee
Connecticut	Maryland	North Carolina	Vermont
Delaware	Massachusetts	Ohio	Virginia
Florida	Mississippi	Pennsylvania	Washington, D.C.
Georgia	New Hampshire	Rhode Island	West Virginia
Kentucky	New Jersey	South Carolina

 

Ejemplos:

1.      Pacific Sub-Region to Pacific Sub-Region and Pacific Sub-Region to East Sub-Region

The round-trip NTD SLA between an On Net location in California and an On Net location in New Mexico is 90ms because both states are in the same U.S. Pacific Sub-Region. The NTD SLA for transport between an On Net location in California and an On Net location in New York is 100ms because the transport crosses from the Pacific Sub-Region to the East Sub-Region.

2.      East Sub-Region to East Sub-Region and East Sub-Region to Central Sub-Region

The round-trip NTD SLA between an On Net Location in Alabama and an On Net Location in Maine is 90ms because both states are in the same U.S. East Sub-Region. The NTD SLA for transport between an On Net location in Alabama and an On Net location in Oklahoma is 100ms because the transport crosses from the East Sub-Region to the Central Sub-Region.

 

Table 2: Hawaii to On Net GFR Countries Round Trip NTD

 

Offering:

Frame Relay transport to or from Hawaii to other countries including the U.S. 48 contiguous states falls under the Country to Country matrix structure. This is because of the ocean cable that is used for transport between the continent of the U.S. and Hawaii. The NTD measures are presented here to avoid confusion with the listing for the U.S. continent that is covered in the Country to Country Matrix.

 

País	Hawaii, US		País	Hawaii, US
ARGENTINA	334		LUXEMBURGO	290
AUSTRALIA	352		MALASIA	299
AUSTRIA	306		MEXICO	141
BÉLGICA	283		HOLANDA	282
BRASIL	291		NUEVA ZELANDA	255
CANADÁ	195		NORUEGA	309
CHILE	351		PANAMÁ	215
CHINA	323		PERÚ	289
COLOMBIA	200		FILIPINAS	262
REPÚBLICA CHECA	301		POLONIA	316
DINAMARCA	295		PORTUGAL	323
FINLANDIA	321		PUERTO RICO	237
FRANCIA	307		RUSIA	337
ALEMANIA	305		SINGAPUR	296
GRECIA	340		COREA DEL SUR	222
GUAM	228		ESPAÑA	306
HAWAII, US	20		SUECIA	308
HUNGRÍA	317		SUIZA	318
INDIA	370		TAIWÁN	247
INDONESIA	306		TAILANDIA	303
IRLANDA	287		REINO UNIDO	291
ISRAEL	362		UNITED STATES	198
ITALIA	309		VENEZUELA	203
JAPÓN	226

 

Table 3:  Puerto Rico to On Net GFR Countries Round Trip NTD

 

Offering:

Frame Relay transport to or from Puerto Rico to other countries including the U.S. 48 contiguous states falls under the Country to Country matrix structure. This is because of the ocean cable that is used for transport between the continent of the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The NTD measures are presented here to avoid confusion with the listing for the U.S. continent that is covered in the Country to Country Matrix.

 

País	Puerto Rico		País	Puerto Rico
ARGENTINA	216		LUXEMBURGO	205
AUSTRALIA	443		MALASIA	394
AUSTRIA	221		MEXICO	135
BÉLGICA	197		HOLANDA	197
BRASIL	172		NUEVA ZELANDA	331
CANADÁ	188		NORUEGA	224
CHILE	233		PANAMÁ	139
CHINA	417		PERÚ	170
COLOMBIA	128		FILIPINAS	357
REPÚBLICA CHECA	215		POLONIA	230
DINAMARCA	209		PORTUGAL	238
FINLANDIA	236		PUERTO RICO	20
FRANCIA	222		RUSIA	251
ALEMANIA	220		SINGAPUR	398
GRECIA	254		COREA DEL SUR	318
GUAM	324		ESPAÑA	221
HAWAII, US	237		SUECIA	223
HUNGRÍA	231		SUIZA	233
INDIA	465		TAIWÁN	342
INDONESIA	400		TAILANDIA	398
IRLANDA	201		REINO UNIDO	205
ISRAEL	276		UNITED STATES	162
ITALIA	224		VENEZUELA	102
JAPÓN	320

 

Round Trip Network Transit Delay Matrix for U.S. to Non-U.S. Locations

COUNTRY NAME	AR	AS	AU	BE	BR	CA	CI	CN	CO	CZ	DA	FI
U.S. (48 States) 1	249	300	261	190	221	149	263	294	161	232	252	278

1. United States: Covers 48 contiguous States. Hawaii is covered on a separate table in this Appendix. Alaska is a FRE site and therefore excluded from the Standard Global Frame SLA.

 

Round Trip Network Transit Delay Matrix for U.S. to Non-U.S. Locations

COUNTRY NAME	FR	DE	GR	GU	HU	IN	ID	IE	IL	IT	JP	LU
U.S. (48 States) 1	265	226	294	197	166	422	338	187	268	230	218	245

 

Round Trip Network Transit Delay Matrix for U.S. to Non-U.S. Locations

COUNTRY NAME	MY	MX	NL	NZ	NO	PA	PE	RP	PL	PT		RU
U.S. (48 States) 1	347	148	237	263	263	183	260	304	271	278		193

 

Round Trip Network Transit Delay Matrix for U.S. to Non-U.S. Locations

COUNTRY NAME	SG	KR	ES	SE	CH	TW	TH	UK	EE. UU.	VE
U.S. (48 States) 1	338	273	206	263	249	307	337	179	NA	165

 

Country Code Table for Round Trip Network Transit Delay Matrix

 

CODE       COUNTRY NAME

 

AR            ARGENTINA

AS             AUSTRALIA

AU             AUSTRIA

BE             BELGIUM

BR            BRAZIL

CA            CANADA

CI              CHILE

CN            CHINA

CO            COLOMBIA

CZ             CZECH REPUBLIC

DA            DENMARK

FI              FINLAND

FR            FRANCE

DE            GERMANY

GR            GREECE

GU            GUAM

HU             HUNGARY

IN              INDIA

ID              INDONESIA

IE              IRELAND

IL              ISRAEL

IT              ITALY

JP             JAPAN

LU             LUXEMBOURG

MY            MALAYSIA

MX            MEXICO

NL             NETHERLANDS

NZ             NEW ZEALAND

NO            NORWAY

PA             PANAMA

PE             PERU

RP            PHILIPPINES

PO            POLAND

PT             PORTUGAL

PR            PUERTO RICO

RU            RUSSIA

SG            SINGAPORE

KR            SOUTH KOREA

ES             SPAIN

SE             SWEDEN

CH            SWITZERLAND

TW            TAIWAN

TH             THAILAND

UK             UNITED KINGDOM

US             U.S. (48 States)

VE             VENEZUELA

                

Exclusions

 

General Exclusions

The following exclusions apply to all Service Level Agreements contained in this document:

 

·         Any act or omission on the part of the Customer, its contractors or vendors, or any other entity over which the Customer exercises control or has the right to exercise control;

·         Labor strikes;

·         Natural disasters;

·         Scheduled maintenance on the part of the Customer, Customer contractors or Customer vendors;

·         Scheduled maintenance on the part of Company which are within Company’s maintenance windows;

·         Lapses of service associated with new installations (i.e., before new service acceptances by Customer);

·         Lapses of service that are not associated with Company provided service;

·         Lapses of service or performance issues related to Customer Premise Equipment (CPE); or

·         Force majeure events beyond the reasonable control of Company (including, but not limited to, acts of God, government regulation, acts of domestic and/or international terrorism, and national emergency).

 

Network Availability Exclusions

Network Availability measurements do not include periods of Network Outage resulting in whole or in part from one or more of the following causes:

 

·         For End-to-End Network Availability (Type 1 access) circuits, any act or omission on the part of any third party including, but not limited to any local access provider;

·         For End-to-End Network Availability (Type 2 or 3 access) circuits, any act or omission on the part of any third party other than a local access provider; or

·         Periods of service degradation, such as slow data transmission.

 

Mean Time To Repair Exclusions

The MTTR objective applies only in those cases in which the Customer informs Company of a Network Outage (i.e., opens a Trouble Ticket) and subsequently allows necessary access to its premises and facilities for testing.  MTTR measurements do not include the following:

 

·         Any act or omission on the part of any third party, other than a local access provider;

·         Customer inquiry for circuit monitoring purposes only; or

·         Periods of service degradation, such as slow data transmission.

 

Network Transit Delay Exclusions

·         Frames consisting of more than 200 bytes are not considered in calculating the NTD;

·         The NTD objective is suspended during periods in which a major network component (e.g., backbone link or gateway switch) is not functioning and the network is in an emergency reroute configuration;

·         Any act or omission on the part of any third party including, but not limited to, any local access provider.

 

Data Delivery Ratio Objective Exclusions

DDR measurements related to the objective do not include any Network Outage resulting in whole or in part from one or more of the following causes:

 

·         Frames dropped at infrastructure egress due to improper Customer specifications of Customer port speeds;

·         Frames which are not delivered due to problems unrelated to Company’s network including, but not limited to, local access;

·         Any act or omission on the part of any third party including, but not limited to, any local access provider; or

·         Periods of service degradation, such as slow data transmission.

 

Service Installation Exclusions

Service Installation measurements do not include the following:

 

·         Delays resulting from changes to a previously accepted service order by Customer, its agents or vendors;

·         Any promotional offerings on any installation fees for port, PVC or access;

·         A Customer-ordered installation date that is within the Service Installation Period;

·         Unavailability of Customer’s premises, equipment, or facilities required to install the service;

·         Delays attributed to extending the access circuit demarcation point;

·         Installations outside of the forty-eight (48) contiguous U.S. states;

·         Delays due to causes beyond Company’s control;

·         Delays resulting from an order suspension due to credit issues involving the Customer;

·         Delays resulting from inaccurate or incorrect order information from Customer.

 

Enhanced Proactive Notification SLA Exclusions

The SLA for Enhanced Proactive Notification does not include the following:

 

·         Circuits that are not enrolled in Frame Relay Gold or Frame Relay Platinum;

·         Service interruptions originating from the Customer’s premise that do not trigger loss of LMI;

·         Loss of LMI due to router failure;

·         Access circuits outside of the forty-eight (48) contiguous U.S. states;

·         Service interworking circuits for Frame to IP and FRASI;

·         Periods of service degradation, such as slow data transmission;

·         Catastrophic or Major events such as fiber cuts or network switch outages that effect multiple Customers;

·         Customer point of contact unavailable to receive notification;

·         Customer point of contact information (telephone, pager etc) incorrect or not operable.

 

Additional International Exclusions

Company further excludes SLAs for International Frame Relay service based on any Network Outage resulting in whole or in part from one or more of the following causes:

 

·         Virtual Points of Presence (VPOPs)

·         Network to Network Interface (NNI) Partners

·         Concert Frame Relay Service

 

Terms and Definitions

 

Terms and Definitions	Definition
Access Link Congestion	Congestion on the local access link, which runs between the Customer's premises and the Company POP.
Access Serialization Delay	Delays in the local tail component of the transport related to the process of changing the transmission from parallel-by-byte to serial-by-byte.
Access Type 1	Circuits for which local access is furnished wholly via MCI Legacy Company facilities or which are collocated with Company facilities.
Access Type 2	Circuits for which local access is furnished in part via MCI Legacy Company facilities.
Access Type 3	Circuits for which local access is not furnished via MCI Legacy Company, but are ordered and billed on Customer’s behalf by Company.
Arbor	Billing platform used in Europe and Asia for Non U.S. locations sold through the Europe and Asia Pacific sales groups.
BAN	Billing Account Number
Billing Account Number	The account number to which all the port and PVC charges are linked.
Billing Month	The period of time used for the monthly invoice. This is usually a minimum of 30 days but starts after the first of any month.
Customer Premise Equipment CPE)	Telecommunications equipment located at the Customer site.
Customer Provided Access	Local access line that the Customer arranges for with a local provider. The local provider bills the Customer directly.
Customer Service Center	Service centers where Customers call in to report service issues.
Data Delivery within CIR	Percentage of payload frames, without the address field or the frame check sequence, successfully received at the Ingress User Network Interface (UNI) through the Egress UNI.
Domestic U.S. Locations	Locations in the 48 contiguous states.
Edge to Edge	Transport within the Company network excluding the access line, CSU/DSU and the router.
Egress queue	The order in which the frame packets exit the Company network.
End to End Network Availability	The total number of minutes within a billing month during which a specific PVC route and local access are available to exchange data between two Customer end points divided by the total number of minutes in a billing month.
Enhanced Proactive Notification	Part of Frame Relay Gold and/or Frame Relay Platinum where the Company will notify the Customer of a loss of Local Management Interface (LMI) within an established time period.
Enhanced SLA Service Parameters	Service Level Agreements that the Customer can purchase for additional service fees.
Frame Relay Extension	Frame relay services through sites where the Company partners with another regional provider. The Company does not own these geographic points of presence.
Frame Relay Forum	Professional Standards Group for frame relay providers. URL:www.frforum.com
Frame Relay Forum FRF.13	Series of standards developed by the Frame Relay Forum that defines the characteristics and measurement of a set of service level Agreements.
Frame Relay Gold	Network management product offered by the Company.
Frame Relay Platinum	Network management product offered by the Company.
Global Tier A	One of the four categories of countries defined by a unique set of service commitments.
Global Tier B	One of the four categories of countries defined by a unique set of service commitments.
Hard Outage	Complete loss of service where the Customer can not use the service and is prepared to release it for immediate testing.
International Frame Relay	Frame relay service sites outside of the United States.
Local Management Interface (LMI)	This is a set of enhancements to the basic frame relay specification. LMI includes support for a keep-alive mechanism, which verifies that data is flowing, and a status mechanism, which provides an on-going status report on the DLCIs known to the switch. LMI is known as LMT in ANSI terminology.
Mean Time to Repair	The time required to repair the service difficulty from the point the service desk is notified until the point where the service is restored. Mean Time to Repair is measured in Hours, minutes and seconds. (00:00:00)
Metro Frame Relay	Frame relay service between business sites located within the same Local Access Transport Area (LATA). A LATA normally covers an area larger than a metropolitan area.
MRR	Monthly Recurring Rate.
Network Outage	Service disruption or degradation. Network Outages are classified as either hard or soft outages.
Network Transit Delay	The time required for a single frame packet set up as a ping text to travel round trip between an origination point to a destination point and return to the origination point.
On Net	Frame relay service on the Company geographic points of presence where Company has full ownership. These sites sit in contrast to Frame Relay Extension Sites (FRE) where Company provides service through a partner using a network-to-network (NNI) interface.
Option 1 Frame Relay	Frame relay service on the U.S. Lucent_ Ascend service with or without services on the Company international network.
Option 2 Frame Relay	Frame relay service on the U.S. Nortel-Lucent (Ascend) network with or without the Company international network.
Permanent Virtual Circuits	A virtual circuit that provides the equivalent of a dedicated private line service over a packet switching network between two DTEs (Data Terminal Equipment). The path between the two users is fixed.
Puerto	An entrance to and/or exit from a network.
Protocol overhead	Information such as control, routing and error checking characters that is in addition to the user-transmitted data.
Servicio	The term "Service" is defined as the Customer port, PVC and Type 1, 2 or 3 access for purposes of the SLA qualification. The access loop must be purchased through Company.
Service Installation Agreement	Service commitments made by the Company to the Customer, which carry credits in cases where the installation of service at the site does not meet the commitment levels.
Service Installation Period	The time from when the Company accepts an order for new service as complete to the time the circuit is ready for the Customer's use.
Service Level Agreement	A series of performance commitments made by the Company to the Customer.
SLA	Service Level Agreement
Service Level Guarantee	The term used by Company to describe the SLA metrics and credits prior to the fourth quarter of 2002. Company replaced this term with SLA for Service Level Agreement in the fourth quarter of 2002.
SLG	Abbreviation for Service Level Guarantee
Service Publication and Price Guide	Tariff document posted on the Company public web site. Details on locating the document are in the GFR-SLA section titled "Access to Public Documents".
Service Restoration Priorities	Process by which service disruptions are ranked by the Customer Service Center.
Severity of the outage	The features of the outage, which determine the Service Restoration Priority. These include the ability of the Customer to use the service, the willingness of the Customer to release the service for testing and the degree that the outage prohibits transport of data.
Soft Outage	A degradation of service where the Customer is able to use the service and is not prepared to release the service for immediate testing.
Standard SLA Service Parameters	End to End Network Availability, Mean Time To Repair and Network Transit Delay.
Trouble Ticket	The result of reporting by a Customer to Company of either a perceived service outage or service degradation.
U.S. Category	48 contiguous United States plus Hawaii.
U.S. Domestic	48 contiguous United States.

 

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